(WBEN/AP) - Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz was waiting to catch his flight back to Buffalo on Wednesday when he saw through the terminal window at Ronald Reagan National Airport some emergency vehicles moving out below.
"It didn’t seem anything too strange at that point," said Poloncarz, as he described the scene in the moments after an Army Black Hawk Helicopter collided midair with and American Airlines passenger jet, Flight 5342, sending both aircraft in the icy waters of the Potomac River on Wednesday night.
"Then about a minute or so after that, there was an announcement of a full-ground stop, that there would be no flights landing and no flights taking off. And then we started to see a lot of emergency vehicles heading towards the river."
Poloncarz and others soon saw reports on social media of a plane crash, while rumors began to swirl.
"When flights get delayed, people get aggravated and upset. But there was no one getting aggravated or upset, because I think we all realized pretty quickly the magnitude of what occurred," Poloncarz said in an interview with WGRZ-TV. "The terminal grew pretty quiet. There was a lot of sadness."
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Poloncarz has been in Washington, D.C. over the last couple of days to meet with other officials for a Disaster Reform Task Force Meeting.